The soap opera journal of a poet who has set up household on the edge of Leona Canyon in Oakland, California where she creates meaning for herself from the vortex.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Empty NestEveryone's asking about my empty nest and how it came to beAfter 25 years of raising kids, this is what's in front of me –a condo with a futon, a cable TV, a computer on DSL,a kitchen with granite counter top and a litter box with its special smell.

I'm not saying I'm lonely, or want my kids to move back in.I'm not saying the clock's ticking louder than it's ever been.I'm not saying I expect to hear a good morning from down the hall.I'm not saying I can't stand the quiet.No, I'm not saying that at all.

This place has been good to my family,not like my last roost upon a hill, where I stayed up in a plum tree hosing water on the evening fire drill.

Now the sirens in my life are over, no more red lights at a cross-walk.First things first have become second.Tomatoes are ripening, time for sauce.

Time to build another nest, my last baby gone,it won't be fancy, but near a stream, one that I'm betting my last feather on,betting my last feather on.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Winterwren SpringManzanita and red madrone where a reflection of water flickers on granite rock covered in its own mossy screen for an afternoon showing of Newt Timewith catamarans of water striders floating abovethe stars two newts undulating their tails around each otherthrowing burbly kisses beneath a trickling stream;

now I have no idea what they're doing but I can guessit's X-rated and none of my businessthe sun shifts and the pool sinks into darknessin these Days and Lives of my fifties when I'll not keep my private parts to myself finding new oils to rub the insides of my insides down withfor no audience.